Quinn’s Birth Story

L was induced on Friday night, the day before her due date, due to very low blood pressure. The 3 of us sat in the birthing suite at the hospital, talking and laughing and anxiously waiting to meet our child. When nothing happened by 11pm, J went home to get some sleep – and L and I tried to do the same (easier said than done in a hospital).

At 8am the next morning our OB broke L’s waters to speed things up – at which point she decided that she was having an epidural. L has been adamantly opposed to epidurals all through this process – so I knew she must have been in a heap of pain to even consider it – and truthfully, I was relieved she wanted one. I dreaded the idea of seeing her in pain but I was trying not to influence her choices.

The anaesthetist came and put in the epidural (poor L had to sit perfectly still through several contractions) and then she was able to relax a bit. L was only 2cm dilated and we decided that I would go and pick up some clothes and stuff I had forgotten from home. Nothing much was happening anyway, right?

After pottering around for a couple of hours at home, I went back to the hospital and wandered in casually. While I was waiting at the lifts I got a very urgent call from the midwife Jeannie telling me to hurry back – I could barely press the lift buttons fast enough. L was in serious pain and everything was happening very quickly. The epidural hadn’t work and she was involuntarily pushing before her cervix had dilated properly. We decided to try a spinal block to slow things down – which also didn’t work. I managed to quickly call J and tell him to come straight away.

By this time, our OB arrived and I started to panic when I overheard him talking to Jeannie about his concerns. L was so out of it she didn’t even notice. There was some talk about how to manage a caesarian without a working spinal block but Jeannie told our OB that L was a “great pusher” and to look during her next contraction. I focused on getting L to breathe properly and had a quick glance to see if I could see anything – although I wasn’t expecting to.

Much to my surprise I could see our baby’s hair. I was so excited and told L she was almost there. And 3 pushes later (with a little help from the vacuum) out slid our perfect baby. As soon as I saw him I said to L, “We’ve got a boy” but she was a bit out of it by then so I called out to J who was standing at the side of the birthing suit. Thankfully, he was a bit more interested than L! Our boy let out a squawk and I burst into tears – I never thought I’d hear that sound at one stage.

Words can’t express how much I am in awe of my son. Or how amazingly proud I am of L and everything she has done to bring our boy safely into the world. Or how wonderful it felt to see how happy J was to meet our baby at last. I will never find enough words to tell our child how much we love him – but I will spend the rest of my life trying. He is perfection.